


Whatever This Is

by animasevera



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Consent Issues, Drinking, F/M, No Sex, Romantic Angst, Safeword Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-20 16:15:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13150311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animasevera/pseuds/animasevera
Summary: Typically, Qunari don't have unions for romantic purposes. What will Asaaranda do when she realizes she wants something more?





	Whatever This Is

He could feel the stress in her pulse and smell it in her sweat. She was tense, hesitant, apprehensive. Not ready.  
  
Bull lowered his hands and slid over to sit next to her, pressing his weight into the feathers of the mattress. "Hey, you alright?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine." Yet, there was a pause before she spoke, while her eyes briefly flicked away.  
  
"You sure?" His gaze was sympathetic as he shifted his legs so he could face her directly. He'd seen this a number of times, expected her to use the watchword, but it never came. But she had been hesitant in ways he could not ignore. Even so, he trusted her words over his ability to read her.  
  
"Yeah," Asa repeated through the visible lump in her throat and a casual chuckle. "Really, it's just the usual nerves." Her eyes had still not connected with his completely, and a violet tone had filled her cheeks. "I can take it," she insisted, with an anxious airiness in her voice.  
  
Her choice of words chilled his blood and sharpened his eye. " _Katoh,_ " he commanded, volume low to avoid startling her. "Asa, don't even _think_ like that." Cupping her shoulder, he leveled his gaze with hers and shook his head. "You don't have to _take_ anything. This isn't a fight." He slid the same hand further down her arm, lightly pressing thick fingers against strong sinews before softening his grip and caressing the spot. "The only thing you _have_ to do is enjoy yourself. And," He leaned in as if to whisper, eye not once leaving hers. "Tell me when you're not. I _need_ to know if you're in real pain."  
  
Her gaze fell, and with it went her ability to speak. _It's not about the pain._ The lump in her throat was apparently her heart. As she continued to listen, Asa's gut twisted itself into an even tighter knot. She had always had the word in her memory, ready to let it go when she felt it necessary - but the thrill in her blood always made her want to push herself further, despite the doubts and fears that stirred in her mind. She had hoped that they would collapse under the shared weight of their rutting bodies, but they had their way of floating to the top in the middle of the night like so much mental jetsam. She had hardly spared them much attention between the harrying errands for the Inquisition, but they practically wrote themselves on the walls when he was confronting her with them.  
  
"I..." she started to reply, her voice dropping immediately back into silence as she fished for the words to continue. "I didn't know what'd happen afterwards if I said it. I mean...I didn't know if..." Another stutter that dropped to a pause, and frustration braided her brows. "If that'd be it for us." Already, her eyes were dropping again.  
  
Bull was now the silent one, ruminating over her words with a ponderous rumble of a sigh. "Only if that's what you wanted," he stated as a matter of fact. "Like I said, this is about how _you_ feel. If you're not feeling good, I'm not feeling good."  
  
The tension in Asaaranda's chest had at last started to uncoil, now that she knew her fear was unfounded. "You know," she said with a nervous rasp, "the truth is, it's not always what I want." She watched his face again, alert for any reaction to the negative.  
  
"Talk to me, Asa," he insisted, his face calculated to be unreadable. In truth, though, he only wanted her to continue speaking without his interruption. His attention hung on to her every word.  
  
Asa's hesitation hung in the air like a swelling rain cloud. "I mean...it's not that I don't _like_ it..." Heat pooled in her cheeks as she tried to force out whatever words best framed her thoughts. "It's just that there's times I want to skip the rough shit. Sometimes, I..." Between strings of words, her hands searched the air with erratic gesticulations that ended in rapid flapping in front of her before finally grabbing her temples and groaning in frustration.  
  
Bull raised a heavy brow. He had been meaning to ask about this habit of hers, but had ultimately deduced that she did it when her thoughts were too great to hold within the space of her mind and too disconnected to form into words. "Hey, let's get through one thing at a time. I'm not going anywhere." He slid around to her side, now placing himself at the head of the bed. "It doesn't _have_ to be rough, you know. I can be gentle too. If you want, I could just whisper filthy talk in your ear while you get yourself off."  
  
She lifted her head and lowered her arms, her expression serious. "Sometimes I don't want sex at all. I know it sounds weird, but--"  
  
"No it doesn't." He disliked interrupting her, but this could not be let go. "Weird would be if my dick sprouted an eyeball every time I got hard. _This_ ," he pointed out, "is as normal as taking a shit on a Tuesday. You like what you like, when and how you like it. Or, you don't. Either way, I'm good."  
  
Asa chuckled at the mental image he had painted. "If that happened I don't think I'd _ever_ be able to fuck you again."  
  
The sound of her laughter pulled some of his own tension loose, and he joined in himself with a bellowing laugh that dropped him back into the pillows. "Yeeeah, like I said. Weird." He tilted his head back in invitation and thumped the pillow next to him with the back of his knuckles. "Hey, get over here. Your head keeps drooping."  
  
Now able to breathe again, she crawled over to join him. "Anyway," she went on as she laced her fingers over her stomach. "Sometimes I just wanna get away from everything and everyone else. But..." She cast her eyes toward the ceiling as if to divine her words from the stones that built it. "I want you here with me."  
  
His eye snapped open and locked on hers. He knew exactly what she was implying - he had suspected as much when she mentioned there being an "us." He had been expecting this on some level, but it hardly meant he was prepared. The Qun had always conditioned him to keep his love for companions and the act of sex separate. Yet, in this connection of their senses, something ignited in his chest as well as his loins. The companionship of the one lying next to him both held him back and drove him onward, like a rudder to the old, storm-beaten dreadnought of his mind. He had half a wonder if she only wanted his loyalty to the Qun out of the way so she could claim him for herself. It made perfect sense, by the Qun's logic; she was a mage, with a quick tongue and a strong will, who stood to gain from having him in her service.  
  
But it wasn't like her. He'd seen the way she isolated herself after passing judgments, just to hide the stress of the weight she bore. Her casual jokes and flippant manner were her ways of numbing the pain and easing the pressure. Of holding on to fragments of her old self and reassuring herself she had not lost her mind in a Rift somewhere. He'd watched her slam the door while leaving the war room and collapse onto her throne as if the world was on her shoulders. He'd held her as she broke down sobbing from the pain of her battle wounds and the terror of her own memories.  
  
The hand with two missing fingers sought out her unmarked hand, twining the remaining fingers around hers. "Well, Boss," he finally broke the silence, "You got me. But..." He rolled over onto his side, bringing his face within inches of hers. "Did you _really_ think I was gonna ditch you because you didn't always feel like playing?"  
  
The tone he used brought a fiery blush to her face, but his words loosened the last knots in her gut. "You're not exactly the easiest man to predict," she pointed out, the edges of her lips curling up just a sliver.  
  
He answered with a full grin. "Good. Means I can still surprise you." With that, he planted a quick, firm kiss on her lips.  
  
Before he could pull away, she tucked her hands behind his head and shoved her mouth into his. The harsh taste of maraas-lok was still fresh and strong on his breath, leaving her tongue and lips numb and burning. "Mmm..." she purred between exchanged breaths. "I do like surprises."  
  
He groaned deep into her mouth and hugged her to his own form, pressing his hand down the small of her back where it stopped just short of the curve of her backside. "So..." he murmured, "You still wanna do this?" His hold on her loosened as he asked the question, in case she had no such desire.  
  
With the nagging questions now loosed from her mind, she was much more ready to give herself over to him - but not quite completely. "Later," she answered, kissing a patch of stubble. "I'm not quite back in the mood just yet."  
  
He pressed a hum of acknowledgment into her forehead. "Alright, Boss." His hand returned to her shoulderblades, fingers nesting neatly between them. "You just let me know when you're ready to go...Hey, that rhymes," he pointed out, with a much more lighthearted tone than he had been using. "...Hey, what if I were to seduce you with poetry? You think that'd get you back in the mood?"  
  
Asa burst out laughing so hard she had to wriggle loose to regain her breath. "Shit...there's a guy in my kith. He tries to do that, but his poetry's terrible. You do it and I won't be able to think of anything else."  
  
He could not help but laugh along with her, relieved that she was finally able to relax. "Hah, good point." He lifted his arm for her to return to her spot. "But nah, I won't push you. Not tonight. Doesn't feel right."  
  
Somehow, this made the embrace he offered all the more inviting. Eagerly, she tucked herself back under his arm, letting her body rest flush with his own and sighing placidly against his neck. "...Thanks, Bull."  
  
The moment they were both comfortable, he squeezed her firmly and kissed the top of her head, just between her horns. "No problem. You know I've got your back." The scent of ozone and sweat clung to her hair and neck, leading him to draw it in with a deep breath and spill it out over her shoulder with a pleased rumble as he lowered his arm to her waist. "Mmm...so what do you wanna do? Just stay here and hide from the world for a while? Maybe shoot the shit? Could have someone bring up drinks."  
  
The suggestions by themselves were enough to make her feel at home, something she had rarely experienced since receiving the Anchor. "Yeah...that sounds like a good idea." As she contemplated her drink order, the taste of a vintage she found in an Orlesian manor came back to her memory and with it, the realization that she had brought it and several other bottles with her to her quarters. "Don't worry about ordering, I've got some drinks right here." Squirming away from the comfort of his arms, she crawled to the edge of the bed and dropped down from the side, coming up with the wine for herself and a potent dark ale for Bull. "Here we go."  
  
"Ooh, good thinking," said Bull, propping himself up so he could drink without choking. He sighed with relief at not having to put his brace back on, let alone leave the one bed in Skyhold large enough to comfortably hold him. "You've got no idea how much trouble this saves me, Boss."  
  
She handed off the whiskey to him, sitting up against the headboard as he did with the wine bottle between her thighs. "You're welcome," she replied as she nudged his hip with her own. "Felt like having that fancy Orlesian wine with the name I can't pronounce. You know _that's_ always a measure of quality." She snorted and gave him a look that oozed sarcasm as she pulled the cork out of the neck with her teeth.  
  
"Hah, I hear ya." He lightly bounced his own bottle in his hand before plucking the cork out. Before drinking the contents, he held up the bottle to show there was no label. "At least you _know_ what you're getting. I've got no idea what _this_ shit is."  
  
"And yet you're drinking it anyway," Asa couldn't help but point out.  
  
"Yeah. Nothing worse than letting a perfectly good bottle of Who the Fuck Knows What go to waste if it isn't poisoned or rancid. Which this stuff's not," he said as he sniffed the bottle more closely. "Smell'll tell ya. Usually, anyhow. I've yet to find a poison in the South I can't pick up on. Besides, I've pretty much built up an immunity to most of them. The ones I'm not already immune to, I had used on me so many times my system's just like, 'This shit again? Come ooon, do your worst!' And if it _does_ get worse, I carry antidotes." His face turned grave. "Learned that shit the hard way." He wouldn't speak of the phantom dryness in his throat, or the ghosts of old pains crawling through his gut and the out-of-step canter of his heart. The sounds of his own coughing, retching and gasping echoed through his head, along with the playback of his vision blurring and darkening. Outwardly, there was only a prolonged silence as he stared at his own reflection in the glass.  
  
He didn't have to say a word for Asa to know what was going on, though. "Hey," she alerted him, raising her bottle into his field of view. "Anyone poisons you, I'll be sending every agent Leliana's got to find the one responsible and throw them in Skyhold's lowest dungeon. Nobody fucks with me and mine and gets away with it."  
  
He loosed his worry in a ponderous sigh, mildly shaking his head before turning his eye toward her. "'Preciate it, Boss. But you don't need to spend all those resources on me. I'm pretty good at keeping up with that shit. You _are_ talking to the guy who got hit with fucking _Saar-qamek_ and managed to stay alive and keep his mind not too long ago."  
  
"That was badass," Asa remarked.  
  
"We were both scared at the time," Bull confessed. "I was scared more for you than myself." He pointed the neck of the bottle at her. "I know all the Ben-Hassrath tricks. You don't. They see both of us as threats. You, especially. I can deal with just about anything being done to me, but..." His words fell off into a verbal void as his mind began rapid-firing worst-case scenarios. " _Shit..._ " he growled, taking a huge swig of the ale. "Now _I_ need a fucking drink."  
  
The Inquisitor frowned. It was true, she only knew shapes and shades of what he had been through in Seheron, and had been respectful enough not to prod for details. It was _his_ war to fight; she could do little more than offer him rest. "Good idea. Let's leave the ugly shit at the door. We're here to get away from it all, remember?"  
  
"Yeah," he answered, only half-thinking about what she had said as the burn of the alcohol settled in his gut. His attention now was on the distinct flavor of his drink. "You know, I think I've got a good idea of what's in this bottle."  
  
"Oh?" she asked, thoroughly relieved at the chance for levity.  
  
"Yeah. Nevarran stout. Had it in a tavern in Orlais once. I asked for 'The strongest shit on the tap' and that was what they gave me. Dry, but hits the spot." His eye went to her bottle. "What've you got?"  
  
"Orlesian vintage of some kind," said Asa after taking a small sip. "No idea, but it's pretty good. Has a pucker to it, kind of. I think it's blackberry."  
  
His lips pursed in appreciation. "Ooh, blackberry's good. Can I try some?"  
  
"If you pry it from my cold dead hands, maybe," Asa teased, holding onto her bottle more possessively. "Mine."  
  
"Aww..." the huge Qunari pouted, entirely in jest. "You're no fun."  
  
She saw right through his display, but it was amusing enough to entertain anyway. "Oh...I suppose you can have a little taste."  Setting her bottle on the table nearby, she took his jaw in her hands and planted a kiss on his lips.  
  
He had figured out her plan once she set the bottle aside, but he certainly wasn't complaining. Rather, he rumbled with delight as their lips parted, taking in the tartness of the berries and the mild burn of the wine still on her breath. He slung an arm over her back, carefully holding his drink out of the way with the other hand as he wrestled her into a close half-embrace.  
  
It might have been the wine, or the heat of their bodies pressed together. Something inside Asaaranda sparked, sizzled and roared to life, and she hugged his sinewy neck and massive shoulders as she drove the berry-laced kiss deeper against his mouth, letting out a low moan of her own as her hands traveled up the back of his head.  
  
A playful growl rolled up from his gut as he broke with her to take a breath, immediately returning to bite and lick at her neck. "Hnngh...I like _this_ taste." He was rough but patient, still waiting for signs of hesitation. This time, though, something in his instincts told him it might simply be better to ask. "Hey...you feelin' good?" he posed the question against the pointed shell of her ear, his voice barely more than a throaty vibration.  
  
She said nothing at first. As much as his touch and his voice kindled her senses and she longed for them, her chest was still just as tight as before, and the drink was not loosening it.  
  
He had expected as much. He drew back from her ear, but kept an arm around her in case she desired it. "Alright, we can wait. We're gonna be drunk, anyway."  
  
Her breath loosed in a sigh. Three times she had hesitated, and each time, he had stopped his advances just from reading her. The number itself left a weight in her chest that anchored her mind from floating away. "Bull," she said, opening her eyes to look at him. "What if I wanted this to be more than..." Her silence drew out. "...This?"  
  
Now he was the one searching for words. He'd hoped she'd accept his casual approval, but she had driven her point home further this time. This mage, this Vashoth, had fallen in love with him - a long time ago, by his recollections. For so long, he had tried to avoid letting it happen. She was dangerous in ways the Ben-Hassrath playing at being a mercenary never would have seen coming. The electricity at her fingertips had run a current straight into his heart and his mind. He once feared getting too close, lest she lure him away from the path and off into the woods.  
  
But that path was walled off now, and he only had that wayward glow to guide him. The bright, eerie green glow of the Fade itself, set in the hand she extended to him. All the while, he had expected her to take his mind from him and leave him a mad, broken shell, fodder for demons and lost to reality. It never happened. Instead, she took him in where his own brethren had cast him out for his betrayal. She had given him a place and a purpose, duties to fulfill - for all intents and purposes, she had given him a home where even the Qun gave him none.  
  
His own heart drummed deep in his chest as his eye met with hers. They were the deep, mossy green of serpentstone, a sharp and certain gaze hidden behind trembling irises. Her body was shaking in his arms, full of so much static it was bleeding out of her pores and skittering across his skin. From the way it felt, if he didn't give her an answer soon, she'd explode.  
  
But he didn't know what answer to give. There was nothing in the Qun or his education that could have ever prepared him for this. Sex was one thing, either for reproduction or for needed relief of the heat of blood. Love, if felt at all, was another thing entirely; certainly, not with this depth or intimacy. There were few such close embraces, whispered affections, or kisses and bites full of passion. Shared secrets could get you killed, especially if that secret was a romantic affair. The Tamassrans were especially vigilant about rooting out such emotions; they almost always led to desertion. Bull had heard of lovers torn apart and reeducated until they had forgotten one another's names, and assigned to new roles where they would never see one another again. You had to be cautious with every thought and word, guarding heart and mind from the influences that would warp and twist them into selfishness and pride. And yet, here he was, a Tal-Vashoth, having abandoned his own to bloody the tide, and involved with a fucking _mage_ whose lips still moved freely. One of their best and brightest had turned into the exact cautionary tale the Tamassrans told to the imekari about magic. He didn't know what to believe anymore.  
  
Perhaps, he thought, there was a way to place the decision back into her hands. "Well..." he began, calling up his memories of a practice he had heard of while in Seheron. "There's this Qunari custom where you'd take a dragon's tooth and split it in two, and then you'd both take half. That way, no matter how far apart life took you, you'd always be together." The tale was spun, and the proposal was hers to accept; it was fortunate she knew little of life under the Qun.  
  
Asaaranda failed to fight off a candescent blush. The suggestion was almost _disgustingly_ romantic, too much so to be Qunari. Not that she particularly cared of its veracity as a Qunari custom; a love token was a love token. It was unfortunate that the teeth from the last dragon they had slain were turned in for research. "Of course it'd involve dragons," she mused against his neck. "How do I know you don't just want to fight another one?"  
  
"Mmm...you don't." He slung a hand down around her hip and rolled onto his back so she lay on top.  
  
Asa purred when his nails stroked the back of her thigh. "More Ben-Hassrath stuff?" She splayed her body over his, head on his chest and thighs hanging around his own.  
  
The familiar rush of his own blood made him grunt with pleasure as he lazily grabbed the mage's ass. "Yeah. And you're still pronouncing it wrong, Asaaranda."  
  
The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as she listened to her name roll on his tongue and vibrate in his chest. "Least I _can_ talk," she murmured a heated breath against his gray skin.  
  
Her tone was so casual, but it shook something in The Iron Bull's chest. He closed his eye and forced away another vision of her as a Saarebas, quietly thanking whatever forces kept this world turning that she had avoided such a fate, that her clever mind and quick tongue were still hers. His arms wrapped around her shoulders, tighter and closer, more protective but with a subtle fear of losing her to some force he could not foresee. More shadows crept into the spaces of his mind left vacant by the ones he had driven off.  
  
"Hey, you alright?" Asa's familiar, tinny voice broke the silence, softer than before. "I probably shouldn't have said that," she admitted, "Looks like it hit a little too close to home."  
  
Bull flared his nostrils with a sigh. He appreciated her concern, but his own ran so much deeper than a few careless words. "Nah, I'm fine. It's you I'm worried about." The words came out strained and stilted.    
  
Asa frowned. She was no Ben-Hassrath, but she was still perceptive enough to see the deepening lines scoring his brow. She extended a grey hand to touch his cheek and stroke the stubble along his jaw. " _I'm_ fine, Bull. You go through so much shit for my sake, without me even really asking for it. And besides me, you've got so much other stuff to deal with..." She paused to press a kiss against those lines. "I worry about you, too."  
  
His instinct was to wave off her concern, but she had already proven it would not work. Yet, he was still far from ready to let her in as deeply as she seemed intent on reaching. What he kept locked away there would almost certainly sicken and horrify her, even possibly drive her away. That thought by itself made his heart scaffold up into his throat. There was little he could do, though. She was a deadly combination of curious and empathetic, observant and engaging. It was enough to make him slip into his usual pattern of observing every microexpression, trying to read her thoughts by her tics.  
  
_Nah, not this time,_ he reminded himself, drawing a breath from low in his gut. _I'm safe. She's safe. Asit tal-eb._ He repeated the mantra in his mind until the tightness left his brow and he spilled his worry out in a soft groan. "...Thanks, Boss." He didn't quite put all his effort into being convincing, but Asa wasn't exactly sober enough to notice. "But I'm good."  
  
She didn't spot the act, but she didn't need to - she knew him well enough, and he had been called Hissrad under the Qun for a reason. Having her chest pressed so close to his allowed her to feel every kick and shudder of his heart and shift in his breathing as his thoughts turned and twisted in his mind. Pressing him further felt wrong, as if crossing a threshold beyond which she had not yet been allowed. Instead, she tucked her arms behind his shoulders and pressed them against his back.  
  
"Hey," she broke the pause with a gentle call for his attention. "You don't have to call me Boss when we're not out on official business. This," _whatever this was,_ she thought, "is our time off." The words came out in a low, smoky purr as she brushed pale violet lips against the ridge of his jaw.  
  
Relief flowed into his weathered bones at the familiar static of her touch on his skin. He chuckled warmly and cupped her chin to draw her lips into his reach. "Mmm," he purred into her mouth, "Good. We need it." 


End file.
